by Ryan Johnson
“But anyways, now I can save this thousand-year-old princess and have her tell me where to find the armor artifact, attach it to my body, pull out the other half of the sword, and possibly kill the witches and their servant.
“Saving the princess and have her show me where the cave is going to make my journey take longer. I hope the cave isn’t long and wide. I want to get back home and take a two-week vacation.”
Vaeludar jumped off and flew towards the castle. He was aiming to land on the flat watchtower.
As he flew closer, villages appeared the castle grounds. Farmhouses and stables stood tall and abandoned. A stone wall stretching out five miles long and wide covered the castle and the abandon villages. There wasn’t a scent of a human being or a frolic of a doe. The large area was a ghost town; a place where buildings remained built with no living people.
For a place that stood undisrupted for a thousand years, no plants grew on the buildings nor were they in ruins. Every building structure didn’t collapse; everything stood standing without a scratch. It was as if the entire place had been petrified from the decay of time and forced into a barrier where the power of time stops completely.
When Vaeludar flew closer to the castle’s flat watchtower, he landed with ease. He leaped over the edge. Holding onto the cliff with his wings, Vaeludar kicked the glass windows.
Little glass pieces went flying.
Vaeludar used his wings to swing through the window he smashed. Landing inside, the room was filled with lightness.
Inside the room, Vaeludar saw it big Geraldus’s mansion home, but it a ransacked pigsty. There laid a broken bed mattress filled with caroches. A torn chair was sliced in half. Stoned walls were marked in scrapes and claw marks. Curtains were ripped and covered in dust. Wooden tables crushed in half if it was snapped by a fist of a hand.
The entire room was in ruin.
Vaeludar could smell the scent of weak dust in a bedroom. He walked over and blew a soft wind on the dust away from the ripped curtains that were hung over torn furniture. The colors of the curtains appeared to be black.
“Whoever lived here did have poor taste in living quarters,” exclaimed Vaeludar. “And I think I am in the king’s main quarters. I can quite imagine what it would be like if my teammates were here. I could see my reputation: Vaeludar the invading the king’s bedroom. How embarrassing that would be. Me a royal room, which hadn’t been used in a thousand years.” Vaeludar shook his head hard.
“I should be on my way,” he said to himself. Vaeludar walked to a beaten down door. Vaeludar kicked the door pieces out of his way and made his way through a hallway. There were stoned walls and a stairway that spiraled down. Vaeludar ran down the stairs.
About going down two hundred steps, he walked in another hallway. Darkness lay ahead. A deep air cold as ice chilled Vaeludar’s spine. He could sniff the cold air.
From his eyesight, there were several doors shut tight on both walls. Curved, golden candlesticks hung on the walls. Some were in good shape and others were torn from the walls. The walls showed claw marks. The doors had claw marks.
Vaeludar raised the Crystal Sword higher and glowed brighter. The light lit ten feet ahead of him. He puffed up his chest if he was going to battle and walked slowly.
The hallway was stone piled over stone. The shape of the hall was half an oval. Broken, diamond chandeliers hang from the ceiling.
With each step Vaeludar took, a sound breaking glass was echoed in the hall and disappearing into the darkness ahead of him. He gripped the sword with his two hands. Every door he passed, he would push it open.
A window would show a brief brightness of light. Inside each room he saw, there were luxurious beds, fireplaces, paintings, tapestries sowed with pure Unicorns slaying evil Dragons, tables, and chairs. Each room the hybrid looked into never been ransacked or torn by any beast.
Vaeludar continued into the darkness and left any doors closed. He kept saying to himself the only people and beasts there should be the Ice Dragon and the princess: two things that from a fairy tale that doesn’t have a happily ever after.
And the ending had remained a mystery for many thousands of years. Now that was about to end when Vaeludar would act like the Prince Charming character and save the princess from the Dragon.
He kept his ears and eyes out for any prowling eyes from a large dragon. He was ready for an attack, but going against a Dragon that blows out ice instead of fire? A Dragon that can turn anyone in an ice cube?
Vaeludar knew he was about to fight a Dragon he never fought. He thought of the strengths of an Ice Dragon may have but he wasn’t going to know of any weaknesses. Vaeludar may not have the strengths or will to fight the Ice Dragon alone, and he has no one to help him fight it.
He had a feeling he wasn’t ready to face a full grown Dragon. He didn’t have proper training, other than sword training, or the knowledge to fight a Dragon.
Other than facing a Minotaur, turning two Giants and two Cyclopes, scaring Black Dogs, fighting three witches and a piper, and killing a Banshee, Vaeludar wasn’t up with fighting the Dragon, not alone even. But since this happens to be one of the Five-Headed Dragons, Vaeludar was going have to kill it alone.
He pressed onward. The light revealed the end of the wall to a dark doorway. The metal-steal door was wide open.
The hybrid kept his cool and walked through the doorway. After walking through the doorway, there was another room he was entering.
The glowing light in the Crystal Sword glowed brighter and showed the room was a staircase room. It was about a hundred yards wide in the width. There was a railing and other doorways opened and closed. The hybrid knew he was on the top level. Vaeludar peaked over the railing.
Down below, the great frightful darkness covered the bottom staircase as the darkness stretched down like a large hole dug into the ground. No light appeared. There were no windows showing the brightness on the outside.
The glowing light was the source of light Vaeludar could have.
Seeing how he doesn’t want to go slow, Vaeludar leaped over the railing and glided down into the darkness. Diving like a falcon, Vaeludar held out the Crystal Sword in front of him. He was falling fast like a meteor.
After falling for thirty seconds, the glowing light showed him the ground level. Vaeludar spread out his wings and let the air descend on his paper-like wing skin. He landed with a thud echoing in the darkness above him.
The ground felt cold and wet. There was no water or ice but it felt like it when Vaeludar touched the ground with his left hand. He could feel a bitter coldness flowing around him. He stood up and looked around in the glowing light.
There was a twenty foot long archway in front of him, amazed it was still in perfect shape. He didn’t need his affection of the archway get the better of him; he continued to walk forward.
His nerves were spinning sharply. His claws clutched to the ground. His arms went stiff. But he was growling fiercely like a terrifying lion. He advanced forward through the archway and stopped at a staircase leading to the left and the right.
And before his eyes, faints of lights appeared from both sides of the dark room, going on for about half a mile. Stained colored windows of Dragons, Unicorns, Centaurs, and Griffins appeared to be glowing. There were windows that were smashed. Sparkling glass fragments appeared on the ground. The dim lights revealed to be a very big room, going on for a quarter of a mile or shorter but a big room, nonetheless.
Ten rows of tables were shown to be. Plates were plated heavily in gold, silver, and bronze, shingling the lights’ reflections. The tables were shown to also be torn and ripped if many monsters charge in a full-scale assault on this castle but leaving so many things and rooms untouched.
Vaeludar knew it had to be a great hall of the abandon castle. There were tables, windows, plates, a hard ground, and stone walls. He walked slowly, looking at all the objects every greedy human left behind. Vaeludar kicked away any
precious yet worthless pieces of metal objects.
It seemed the stories were true: greedy humans were more into the gold and silver instead of the tilling the fields of wheat. When Vaeludar went flying over the farmlands, the wheat fields, which were left untouched for years, grew long as a farmhouse.
Vaeludar lowered the sword since there was no sign of that Dragon or the princess yet. He sniffed the air. He was picking up no scent of any living thing.
He was beginning to wonder if he was in the right place. There were no sounds, no signs of life, no spec of a bread crumb, not even a nest of birds. Vaeludar did not take a liking the place at all.
At the far end of the great hall, the throne stood tall and in ruins. Apparently, the throne was curved from solid into the wall. A big crack broke the back side of the throne in half.
Vaeludar walked towards the cracked throne. He looked at it and saw the seat of the throne where a ruler would sit was not damaged. He was tempted to briefly sit on it for a few seconds, be but he decided not to since he had a tail that him hard to sit with a chair with a back end stuck into the stone wall. Vaeludar then looked at a steep step that was directly below the seat that may have served where a king would put his feet.
A sudden cold breeze came from Vaeludar’s sides. Vaeludar wasn’t alarmed, thinking it was wind from the broken stained windows.
“I have been waiting for you, hybrid,” said a girl’s voice.
Now alarmed, Vaeludar flung the sword upwards and held it tight with a hard grip to the hilt. He spun around and saw a teenage, slender girl standing behind him. She had black hair and light brown skin. Her face was freckled. Her eyes were dark blue as the starry night. She was wearing a shining, white, silky, dress. Her face had shown a big frown.
“You,” said Vaeludar, blinking his eyes. Before him, he had lowered the sword as he was seeking the person he was seeking: the princess of the castle.
“So, I have finally found you,” he said.
“On the contrary, I have found you. I have felt your presence when you mashed through my personal chamber.”
WHAT! thought Vaeludar. The hybrid’s mind was exploding. He thought he entered through a royal chamber to get into the castle, but he never knew it was the princess’s royal chamber; he thought he entered through the king’s royal chamber. His chest and arms began to sweat up. Now he felt like he was in a bad spot.
“I apologize for breaking-and-entering, Your Highness,” said Vaeludar, bowing to the princess.
“Don’t call me that and don’t bow to me. How can I be a princess or a queen if there are no people to rule over?”
That was a good statement the princess had mentioned; Vaeludar found a kingdom but found no people on its land. Vaeludar raised his head up.
“Ok, you seem to know me, and may I know your name?” Vaeludar asked gently.
“I am Charity,” she answered.
“Oh, that’s right: I forgot you were a White Knight,” said Vaeludar.
“I am. I have been granted a White Knight when I tried to convince my father and mother to stop the city from gambling, but to no success. Whatever golden money they gave me, I gave to my poorest subjects of this small kingdom. The previous White Knight of Charity’s ghost found me as worthy to be the next one.
“So I began bestowed as a White Knight of Charity. As the White Knight of Charity, I had vowed to wipe greed away from this kingdom; a kingdom that went to ruin by a Dragon in the body of a snake and small arms and small wings. A rare snakelike Dragon invaded and killed my parents. I tried to rally the castle’s knights but they were occupied of fluting of their own greed.
“As a White Knight, I had power but not enough power to fight against the Ice Dragon. If the other White Knights were here, we’d have unlimited power. But without being united, the White Knights have limited power.
“So, I didn’t have enough strength to fight the Dragon. If the knights of this kingdom had stuck to their duties instead of their love for worthless metals, they would have followed me and we would have won.
“I stood alone when the Ice Dragon invaded my kingdom. Now, I remain captive by the Ice Dragon, which lies somewhere in the nearby mountains, and I am free to roam around the castle on my own free will. If I am to step out of the castle, I would be turned to ice and my powers would not match those of the stronger dragon.”
“Now, I am here, and I have come to save you,” stated Vaeludar. “I have this sword, which may help fight against the Ice Dragon.” Vaeludar showed Charity the Crystal Sword.
“That sword only has half the power and it won’t enough. Even with my power, the half-ripped Crystal Sword won’t be a match with the Ice Dragon. The Ice Dragon is nearly as powerful as the Shadow King. You need the armor artifact and the other half of the sword forged from the Crystal Dragon’s scales, in order to beat the Ice Dragon.”
“Then how do I get you out… of… here… Of course, I can fly you out of here.”
“Yes, if you can fly us both out of here, I will show where to find the cave is, and where the armor artifact will be hidden. By equipping the artifact to your hand, your strength will increase and your power will be stronger than ever.”
“That sounds very useful,” said Vaeludar.
“And you have other abilities you don’t even how about.”
“I’d realize that and I’ve slowly been progressing of what magical abilities I have and don’t have. I can breathe fire like any fire-breathing Dragon. I can turn creatures to stone like a Gorgon.
“And I just found my mother isn’t a human but a witch, which would explain why I have other magical abilities. I can’t get over it that she is a lot older than I thought she would be.”
“And there are other things you have yet to discover, such about yourself. Because you have other things a Dragon and a human do not have. And when you discover what those things are, I foresaw you giving into great anger and a strong hatred for your parents. You will end up giving the Shadow King more strength.”
“Believe me; I will not give in to anger.”
“You will unleash it, hybrid. You will, and when you do, you’d better be ready to counterattack. If you’re not, then losses will end up coming and you will be witnessing them.”
Vaeludar was staring at her. She was sounding like a soothsayer. Now Vaeludar was wondering if traveling all this way up this far north away from his home was worth the effort.
For all he knew now, she could be an imposter pretending to be a White Knight: someone chosen by the Crystal Dragon or by the spirit of Valverno. At first, he was starting to trust her, but it seemed she knew more about him than Vaeludar knew himself for the last seventeen years.
They just met and he felt she was invading his mind, by staring at him. It was like she could read his memories and see every deep thought of every magic power he has.
First, he thinks about being the hero in a fairy tale. Now, he was thinking he wasted his time of hearing a thousand-year-old girl, who was a White Knight, telling him these sorts of things. How could she know more about him than himself? His father and his mother must have told her about him.
“Just what are you getting at? I’m a human-dragon hybrid raised by a mortal man named Geraldus, who raised me while Ralenskrit and Belverda were out scouting for armored toys.”
“Is that who you truly are?” asked the princess.
Vaeludar blinked at the princess’s question. He was certain he does know who he is as he just said. But now, he was starting to grow a bit irritated by the princess’s talking. “Enough of this,” said Vaeludar. “Let’s go before we are caught by the Ice Dragon.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” nodded Charity. “The closest door is over there.”
There was a large broken door under a smashed window. The two ran for the door. Before they exited, Charity said: “Once we stumble out, the Ice Dragon will come charging from one of the mountains. Can you be ready to fly?”
“
I am half dragon. Yes, I can be ready to fly within a matter of ten seconds.”
“Make it five if you can. I never want to see this place again in my life. It has been too boring here for a thousand years, and I don’t want to remember this place. Too many bad memories I do not want to remember.”
“Then one of these days I’ll return and burn it to the ground,” promised Vaeludar.
“I can’t refuse an offer.”
“Then let’s go,” said Vaeludar, widening his wings. He wiped his tail forward at the broken door and burst into dust in one whip. “Let’s get out of here this foul dungeon of yours.”
They both dashed into the open light. The sun was sparkling with its brightness. The surrounding mountains were covered in white snow. The stone wall was turned to ice. The farmhouses and the stables were crushed down to ruble.
A pounding of an earthquake broke the balance of the hybrid and the White Knight and dropped to their knees. Soft growling was heard coming from above their heads.
“He has come,” said Charity, horrified. She turned to the top of the castle to see what was above her head.
A giant blue snake with small skinny legs and thin wings were hanging on the castle’s side, right above them both. Its scales were mixed white and blue scales that were flexible, making it silver and move like a real snake. The head was intertwined with a snake and a bear.
The Ice Dragon had come!
A NARROW ESCAPE
V
aeludar and Charity were looking at the Ice Dragon with its glaring blue-and-red eyes looking at them. It was and snarling and growling with saliva dripping from its icy fangs. With each drop of saliva, an ice glacier was formed.
Vaeludar had never seen a Dragon in the shape of a large snake. He knew what a Sea Serpent looked like, but he never knew one would walk on land and with skinny legs. The Ice Dragon needed to be a hybrid: half dragon half Sea Serpent. But seeing how it was on land with legs and very thin wings: it’s a Dragon.
